Foreign Ministry's press releases

The EU Foreign Ministers will convene for an extraordinary Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on 29 January.

The Ebola epidemic that began in Guinea in March 2014 has proved to be the worst in history, and cases of the disease still occur in the region. Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the countries most affected by the Ebola virus, are in need of support because their already weak health care systems suffer from a lack of resources.

On Monday 26 January, the meeting of the President of the Republic and Cabinet Committee on Foreign and Security Policy discussed further work with regard to the report by a working group examining the need for legislative changes due to crisis management and other forms of international cooperation.

The temporary liaison office of Finland in Beirut will be changed to an embassy as from 1 March 2015. The change will strengthen relations between Finland and Lebanon and will improve the operating conditions of Finland in the Middle East. Aside from Lebanon, the activities of the diplomatic mission will encompass Syria, Iraq and Jordan.

Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Lenita Toivakka will make a Team Finland export promotion trip to Beijing and Shanghai from 26 to 29 January 2015 at the invitation of Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng of China.

United States Special Representative for the Arctic, Admiral Robert J. Papp will visit Finland on Friday, 23 January. Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will hold official talks with Special Representative Papp.

Assem Alsabban, Interim Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy of Saudi Arabia to Finland, was summoned to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on 19 January 2015. He was received by Jarno Syrjälä, Director General of the Department for Africa and the Middle East. The reason was the flogging sentence of Saudi Arabian activist Raif Badawi.

According to local media in Afghanistan, the person accused of killing Finnish aid workers in Afghanistan has been sentenced to death. The authorities have not confirmed the information.

The EU Foreign Affairs Council will convene in Brussels on 19 January. Finland's representative at the meeting will be Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja.

In 2014, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Finland’s diplomatic missions abroad provided a record number of consular services to Finns in need of assistance. In all, about 44,000 consular services were registered during the year.